Lizel Strömberg

Visiting miradouros in Portugal
 
Miradouro is a Portuguese word for vantage-point. When Linnéa and I were doing research of different locations we wanted to visit during our trip to Portugal, we found out there were lots of different vantage-points in Lisbon to get a great view of the city from a higher point. The options were many which forced us to make a selection of places that made us more interested to see since the limited time we had. 
We took the metro to the station "Martim Moniz" where we would take the tram to the first vantage-point named "Miraduoro da Graça". We had some difficulties to understand how to take the tram since we didn't really understood how the schedule of the tram was setup. Unfortunately there wasn't any signs on how many stops it would be to get where we wanted on the tram. We board one of the trams which we thought would get us to the location and looked on the google map to try to find out how far we needed to go.
The tram rides were a bit shaky as these streets and trams were some of the oldest ones in the city. There where several signs telling people to be aware that there can be a lot of pickpockets on these trams. While being on the tram another obstacle appeared. Suddenly the tram didn't moved at all, first we didn't got any information. The driver went outside to see what was going on and when we looked out of the window there would be one tram in front of us and two behind us. The driver came back and told us that we couldn't get further as the tram in front of us was stuck and couldn't move because a car had parked right before a corner.
The drivers, the people walking passed us and some of the people working in the nearby shops tried to see if they could find the owner of the car but without any success. It was funny how no one really was that bothered about the situation, some would be a bit irritated but nothing major. The drivers of the trams would make jokes and asking if the passengers would help him carry the car away. Haha. We were not worried at all as the vibe didn't get intense. After a while, we left the tram and decided to walk the rest of the way as it seemed like the traffic wouldn't move in a very long time.
It was actually very nice walking around the streets of Lisbon. Consider the fact that Linnéa and I visited Portugal in the beginning of July, I was prepared that there would be a lot of tourists taking a vacation there at the same time as us. In our surprise, it was not as crowded as I thought it would be. We for sure saw a lot of tourists everywhere but it wasn't that tight of space. You would be completely fine walking on the streets and not feeling cabined. 
We arrived at "Miradouro da Graça" and we got to see a very nice view of the city. I think it was around 6pm on a Sunday, not a lot of shops were open and not that many locals on the streets. 
We stayed for a bit, took some shots and rested our legs a bit before we started walking again. Our next destination was "Miradouro de Santa Luiza" as we realized it wasn't too far away from us. We couldn't figure out how to take the tram and since we hadn't seen any trams in a while, we guessed the traffic hadn't started moved again. Because of that, we walked to the next vantage-point.
Walking to the other location took a lot more time than I think it probably should because we ended up stopping at different streets as we saw interesting buildings, shops or art on the way. I loved walking around the city, seeing the architecture and feel the vibe of another country.
The second location "Miradouro de Santa Luiza" were a bit more crowded as I think it's one of the most popular and common sight seeing locations for tourists to visist in Lisbon. It was a bit tricky to capture a good photo at this point without having too many people in the shot, but as we didn't had another place to be at, I could take the time to wait for that perfect moment
There were these street artists playing music nearby and I really enjoyed listening to them as they were playing Portuguese songs. I haven't been listening to a lot of Portuguese music so it was a nice change to getting to hear something new. These kids were there playing with each other in front of the street artists but also be sitting there listening to them play and sing. They were so cute so I had to take a photograph of them. 
It was very nice going to these vantage-points and being able to take your time to look around your surroudings, take the pictures we wanted and sit down for a bit. It was very cool seeing how Lisbon looked like from another perspective, to see all the colourful houses and realize how big of a city it actually is. At "Miradouro de Santa Luiza" there were also some kind of garden there outside of a church which had a lot of beautiful flowers. 
Nearby we also found a pool which I don't know if they actually use but it was there and had this beautiful tree next to it. 
I've been traveling a lot with my family and it has been lot of fun. But I really enjoyed traveling with Linnéa and not feeling as stressed out than usual. In this way, we could decide for ourself of what we want to do and not think too much about other people, that we only the two of us to make up plans for. If we wanted to take a moment to take photos we could and if we wanted to continue to walk, we could do that. Having a walk like this isn't something that I usually do but I really enjoyed it and it was lovely seeing something new. 
I highly recommend you to visit these vantage-points "Miraduoro da Graça" and "Miraduoro da Santa Luiza". We had a list of probably 5-7 other places we wanted to go to but these two were the only ones we were able to visit. If we get the opportunity to visit Portugal again, I would definitely try to go to the locations we didn't had time to visit. 
 
This was it for this time, I really hope you enjoyed this post! I'm very happy about these photos, I'm proud over what I managed to capture as this kind of photography isn't what I tend to create on a regular basis. More photographs from our trip to Portugal will be coming soon but until next time, ingat!
/Lizel